


Much is Taken, Much Abides

by Lokei



Category: Agent Carter (TV), Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Episode Tag, Gen, Self-Reflection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-22
Updated: 2015-02-22
Packaged: 2018-03-14 12:42:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 638
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3411020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lokei/pseuds/Lokei
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Episode tag for "The Blitzkrieg Button"</p><p>Peggy is always aware of what she's hidden in the wall, like a tell-tale heart.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Much is Taken, Much Abides

 

 

_Though much is taken, much abides; and though_  
 _We are not now that strength which in old days_  
 _Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are,_  
 _One equal temper of heroic hearts,_  
 _Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will_  
 _To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield._  
~ “Ulysses” by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

 

It should have been strange, should have been disturbing--like living in an Edgar Allen Poe story--knowing what she did about what was hidden behind the loose bricks in the wall.  It should have been, but it wasn't.  It was a stranger kind of comfort instead, like a warm, beating heart had finally replaced the one of ice she'd been bearing.

 

It wasn't like she was going to start talking to the wall, or anything, but it was nice to think some piece of Steve would hear her if she did.  She was resolutely not thinking about Catholic saints or relics or any of that--if for no other reasons than that first, Steve would be horrified, and second, she would start laughing.

 

...And possibly never stop, or at least, not until the tears took over, and she had shed quite enough tears for a man who was determined to put himself into the middle of the ocean instead of doing the decent thing and coming home for a dance.

 

She should probably put a heavier framed picture on that wall, discourage anyone from lifting it off its hook. 

 

Peggy realized she was staring at the wall and shook herself back into motion.  She had had a few setbacks, yes.  Howard turned out to be just as untrustworthy as her initial assessment of him had indicated, all those years ago, and Jarvis nearly equally disappointing--the more so, she had to admit, for the loss of a kind of camaraderie she had hoped to keep, of two strangers in a strange land.  Her fellow agents continued to be dreadful, she had to decide if she cared to clear Stark's name at all any more, and if she didn't, tomorrow would be the same round of irritants without the balm of a sense of greater purpose. 

 

But for all that, Thompson's continued rudeness and Souza's inconvenient perspicacity and all--she had a piece of Steve, the real Steve, back again.  It wasn't the Steve that was the Captain America of those bloody awful radio shows, not the Steve that was the leader of the Howling Commandos or the Steve that belonged to the world--not even the Steve that was the medical miracle Stark believed in.  She had a piece of his will back, the one that dropped that flagpole when he barely had the breath to speak, the one that took off running barefoot, chasing an assassin down city streets before he even knew for sure what his new body could do.  That Steve was hers again, and she had let everyone else's Steve overrun him, a bit, but no more.

 

She wasn't Steve, didn't have his shield, his stature--but she was no "Betty Carver," either.  She hadn't been during the war, and she had no intention of picking up a defenseless lifestyle now.  So she didn't have Steve to lean on, or the structure and urgency of the war's truly *active* duty.  She still had everything she started with, before young, skinny, stupidly brave Steve Rogers came into her life: she had grit, and integrity, and matching bottles of righteous fury and perfume, to be used accordingly. 

 

"That which we are, we are," she murmured, looking past her reflection in the mirror to the picture on the opposite wall.  "I won't let you down again, Steve."

 

And if that meant starting by saving Howard Bloody Stark, that's what she'd do.  She'd call Jarvis in the morning.


End file.
